Anonymous wrote:I am a parent whose child went to daycare at the university where I was completing my degree. It was an amazing daycare center probably better than most preschools - but it wasn't preschool. It was daycare.
I am not ashamed or feel the need to justify my choice to send my child to daycare rather than continue to stay home with her (I did for her first year) or hire a full time nanny. But it was daycare. She was 12 months old when she started and she was in daycare, not school.
I get tired of this argument. We are lying when we call daycare "school" and it makes it seem like we are trying to make it seem better than it is. Daycare cares for my child primarily and teaches secondarily. School teaches my child primarily and cares secondarily.
Now DD actually is in an all day preschool from 9 to 3. Not a daycare.
I agree wholeheartedly with you.
Not only does it bug me when parents do this, but it makes me kind of sad. Don't be so eager to speed up the timeline. Let them be babies in daycare. Soon enough they will be children in school and young adults in college. Don't wish it away.